Monkeys & Birds

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Monkeys & Birds

1995: IIT KGP:

We physicists thought our chemists dumb.

And vice versa.

My complaint was that, while teaching the Bohr Atom, our chemists calculate the masses of various photons emitted.

Not knowing that all photons are massless.

One evening while I was sipping tea on the cement bench at Harry's, Prof S of Chemistry came and sat by my side and opened up:

"My students are asking me: 

'When an electron jumps from an excited state to the ground state, what is the speed with which it makes the jump?' "

A good question needs a good answer:

"Don't think of the electron as a bird jumping down from the upper branch to the lower branch of a tree.

Think of it as a monkey swinging, leaving the upper branch while swinging, and by and by catching a lower branch, and settling down on it.

The frequency of its swing is the Bohr frequency of the emitted photon.

The time it takes for this process is the lifetime of the excited state.

The length of the emitted wave packet is the distance light travels in this time"

And two more questions on QM that puzzled our chemists.

Prof S left a pleased man.

And I lifted my mental collar.

Retribution was coming:

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

A research lab of our department in the ground floor was junking its ancient goods.

And I watched a couple of sealed deal-wood boxes being dumped on the grass lawn below the window; and wondered.

A few days later there was this terrific downpour typical of KGP.

Sitting in my first floor office I heard rapid peals of violent explosions with hissing sounds, not thunder surely; more like bursting Diwali thubries...

And I was puzzled.

And l came out and started walking along the corridor. And, standing in the balcony, I found those deal-wood boxes throw up their flaming contents explosively.

And a professor well-known for his ebullience running out in the driving rain and kicking the boxes and running back into the verandah.

The more he kicked the poor boxes the more vigorously they caught fire and the flaming explosions getting louder and jollier...repeatedly.

The tamasha was going on and on for many minutes.

I turned back and found two professors walking behind me on their way to the canteen.

One of them was saying to the other:

"These poor physics dumb-heads don't know how to store and dispose off their sodium"

The other was sagely nodding his head and smiling.

Any guess which departments these profs are from?

:)

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